What’s New: Importing Pictures from Facebook and Instagram to FamilySearch.org

When I visited my grandma a while back, she told me she had accidentally deleted the internet and needed me to help her reinstall it. Hmmm. Turns out she had actually just deleted the Internet Explorer icon on her desktop! So, imagine my surprise just a few days later when she liked one of my photos on Instagram. The next time I saw her, I said, “Grandma, I didn’t know you knew about Instagram!” When I suggested she start posting her own pictures she replied, “Oh, I don’t have anything to add. Nothing is going on in my life that people are interested in. I just like looking.”

A new feature on FamilySearch.org may be just the way to get Grandma more excited about sharing her own photos. You can now preserve and share your Instagram and Facebook photos directly to FamilySearch. This new integration makes it is easy to choose which photos from these social networks you’d like to link to people in Family Tree and preserve for future generations—a more permanent way for Grandma to leave a photo legacy.

In the window that appears, select the pictures you would like to import, and click Import.

Take note that it is not yet possible to import photos from these social sites using the FamilySearch mobile apps. Also, be aware that you might encounter problems with this feature in the Edge and Internet Explorer 11 browsers due to the trusted site settings. Try adding FamilySearch.org to your trusted sites list or use another browser.

This integration with Facebook and Instagram makes it that much easier to organize and preserve your important family photos. We’ll see if it’s enough to convice Grandma to take the plunge. I hope so!